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The next time winter rears its ugly head be ready with our fantastic Adult Snow Day game plan. Also this week we've got the story on "The Roommate" at Portland Stage, a Bar Guide review of Emilitsa, a Face the Music preview of a local Dolores O'Riordan tribute show, the debut of our new beer column Tap Lines, concert previews and so much more. Have at it!

About The Author

Bob Keyes

Bob Keyes has written about the arts in Maine since 2002. He’s never been much an artist himself, other than singing in junior high school chorus and acting in a few musicals. But he’s attended museums, theaters, clubs and concert halls all his life, and cites Bob Dylan as most influential artist of any kind since Picasso. He lives in Berwick.

Art in unexpected places

Written by: Bob Keyes

Sometimes you find the best art where you least expect it.

It might be a colorful, provocative mural that catches your eye as you drive by or maybe it’s a contemporary sculpture that stops you short and makes you wonder what it’s all about. We’re lucky in Maine, because there’s beauty and inspiration at every turn. We live among creative people, who improve our lives with their perspectives.

There is art in unexpected places throughout Portland and across Maine. Here are seven pieces we like — some new, some old and some newly revisioned.

East Bayside Community Mosaic Mural

When she was artist in residence at the University of Southern Maine last year, Muhsana Ali worked with more than 100 USM students and several hundred people from the neighborhood making small glass paintings. Ali blended them with mirrors, tiles and ceramic pieces and adhered them to a wall in East Bayside behind Young’s Furniture and Coffee By Design.
Ali is a Senegalese artist who specializes in creating conceptual community-centered art. In East Bayside, she created a spiraling, sparkling mural that represents the common origin of all humanity “and the ways in which we spiral out from, or back into, that center,” Ali wrote. She collected footprints from mural participants and placed them along the mural’s spiral path, reinforcing the notion of family and community.Staff photo by Gregory Rec

Portland Mural Initiative, East Bayside

Since 2015, the nonprofit volunteer Portland Mural Initiative has transformed a series of buildings in East Bayside with splashes of color and vitality. The project is best viewed on foot, by parking on Marginal Way and following the Bayside Trail toward town, away from the water. The husband-wife artist team of Will Sears and Tessa O’Brien have recruited a cadre of friends to help turn the backs of several privately owned buildings into large-scale, abstract displays that brighten the neighborhood with colorful shapes and landscape scenes. The brick-and-mortar canvases include the buildings of Running with Scissors, Portland Power Yoga, Akido of Maine and others. Staff photo by Gregory Rec

Speedwell Projects mural

There are two other new murals near Woodfords Corner on the back of Speedwell Projects, 630 Forest Ave. The murals are best viewed from Deering Avenue, behind Speedwell. “It was a homely parking lot, and we wanted to do something different,” said gallery owner and director Jocelyn Lee. “I love public art, and I love art in unexpected places.” The murals are the first of what Lee hopes will be a continuing project to enliven the building and the neighborhood. She is exploring ideas to do something with the roof of the building. But for now, she is thrilled with the murals.
The gallery put out a call for art and divided the building in two halves to give two artist teams an opportunity. Pat Corrigan and Jenny Gardiner worked together on a mural of a pair of elegant white swans, and Pam Chavez created a distinctive mural with blocky shapes, flora and fauna.
The murals will be on view as long as they hold up, Lee said. “We’ll see how they wear. We really love them both, and the idea is that they’re semi-permanent,” she said.Staff photo by Gregory Rec

‘Osprey Landing,’ Martin’s Point

Sculptor Wendy Klemperer displays her heavy-metal animals large and small across Maine, most notably at the Portland International Jetport, and few capture the grace and wonder of the natural world more dramatically than “Osprey Landing” on the Route 1 bridge at Martin’s Point between Portland and Falmouth. Working with rebar and material salvaged from the demolition of the previous bridge, Klemperer represents an osprey as it settles onto its nest, its wings spreading high and wide as its talons prepare for landing.Staff photo by Gregory Rec

‘Wyoming,’ Maine Maritime Museum, Bath

Speaking of dramatic, the evocation of the 1909 schooner Wyoming on the campus at Maine Maritime Museum in Bath is haunting, especially at night. The full-scale skeletal replication of the 400-foot schooner that was built in Bath reinforces the majesty of the old wooden ships. The sculpture’s stern begins on the banks of the Kennebec River, and the bow extends over Washington Street, with six 120-foot-tall masts in between. The metal sculpture by Maine artists Joe Hemes and Andreas von Huene is one of the largest pieces of public art in New England and is best viewed at night when the bow emerges from the dark and appears like a ghost ship.Photo courtesy of Maine Maritime Museum

Lobsterman statue, Bailey Island, Harpswell

In Portland, there are few sculptures more popular with locals and tourists than “Maine Lobsterman” by Victor Kahill at Canal Plaza at Temple and Middle streets, and for good reason. It’s a nice, if unrealistic pose of a previous generation of lobsterman, taking a knee while placing a wooden plug in a lobster’s claw. Did you know there’s a replica of “Maine Lobsterman” at the tip of Bailey Island in Harpswell? It’s fitting that it’s in Harpswell, because the model for the sculpture was a local fisherman named Elroy Johnson.Staff photo by Gregory Rec

Lincoln Park Fountain

It’s not new, but it is restored. Lincoln Park was created as a firebreak after the Great Fire of 1866, and the fountain was added in 1871. The park became a showpiece of the city with its flowerbeds and shady elms. After years of neglect, the park received attention five years ago with an effort to restore both. Georgetown conservator Jonathan Taggart, a member of Friends of Lincoln Park, restored the fountain in his studio, removing, cleaning and repainting. The basin was relined and replumbed, and Taggart replaced a spire similar to an original that had been lost.
Last month, the city and the Friends of Lincoln Park rededicated the newly restored, 2,000-pound cast-iron fountain. And at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 6, the Friends of Lincoln Park will have a lighting ceremony to introduce new seasonal lighting by artist Pandora LaCasse.Staff photo by Gregory Rec